


The Application to the Imperial Academy

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 22:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12803283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: What if... Luke had applied to the Academy?





	The Application to the Imperial Academy

_1 BBY_

He had been resting in the chamber, focusing his attempts, yet again, on healing himself. That he continued to fail was one more source of anger, one more piece of fuel for his ever burning fire of rage. He existed, always, in such flames as to make Mustafar feel like a gentle kiss, as he contemplated his eternal slavery to the suit, to the Master that had guided his path to this hate-filled existence.

When the futility of his efforts reached the breaking point, he touched the keys to reseal his suit, to open the chamber. A single light blinking on the communication console took his attention. What did Tarkin demand this time—

— no, not Tarkin. It was an alert on one of his data sweepers. 

'Skywalker'.

He read the rest and almost absently entered the command to delete all references to it in the databases, while simultaneously sending a single order.

What the message had contained… would be dealt with. There would be no pretenders for that name, especially with that planetary origin.

* * *

Luke grunted as he hit the wall from where the pair of stormtroopers had shoved him into the tiny cell. He had demanded answers and be told to be silent. Running his mouth might have gotten a rib broken.

When he had chosen to apply to the Academy, he had only wanted to escape like Biggs. Tatooine had nothing for him.

Right now, he wanted his aunt more than anything and was completely unashamed by that.

Maybe this was some kind of trial? Something to make sure he was tough enough to be in the Imperial service? It didn't make any sense, though. He wanted to be a pilot, not a stormtrooper.

Uncle Owen was always saying he needed to keep his mouth shut more, and see what was around him, so Luke decided, in this instant, he would follow the violent suggestion to be quiet, and see what happened next. He wasn't going to let a hazing keep him from his dream of flying.

* * *

"My Lord -- "

The functionary's voice cut off as the Dark Lord of the Sith moved in single-minded pursuit of his goal, now that he had arrived at the processing station. His anger sustained him, holding the memory of Skywalker at bay. He was not that weak fool any longer. Anakin Skywalker was dead.

The functionary, at least, was wise enough to merely adapt and move, guiding the Sith Lord through to the holding cell, and Vader almost forgave him for daring to speak out of turn. Yet he said nothing, merely letting the lackey lead, wrapped in his rage, letting its familiar heat sear the long-abandoned thoughts of possibilities destroyed by the unfeeling treachery of the Jedi.

The lackey got the holding area opened… and Vader swept on past, his entourage of a pair of unfamiliar aliens hissing at him in the wake. The Sith Lord ignored all of that, as the awareness of the one individual in the cells gripped him, thrumming with Force.

How?! What Jedi had escaped and now dared?!

On his flanks, the pair of bodyguards sniffed the air, catching a scent that… should not be? They exchanged a look, but neither dared move forward of their savior, not with the temper he had been in for the last three days.

Luke had been drowsing, drifting in the silent isolation of the cell -- nobody had come in to bother him since the last time he'd gotten punched, which was good, though he was starting to be fairly hungry -- when the door hissed open. He rolled up to his feet, blinking at the brighter light and then he froze, fear worse than anything he'd ever felt rolling over him like a sandstorm blowing in. There was a towering black figure in the doorway, harsh breathing echoing in the tiny cell, and Luke flinched back against the slab of berth behind him. Terribly tall, armored from head to foot in black that seemed to drink in the light, and the flat lenses over his-her-their eyes reflected the cell light strangely. Malevolently, he thought, and he heard his breath coming in quick pants. 

Who or what this was, he had no idea, though something from Imperial propaganda was trying to come up in the back of his head past the sudden terror clawing him, but this was far beyond any hazing. 

He saw, behind the terrifying figure, two smaller shapes at its sides, but his eyes were dragged back to the masked face almost instantly. He couldn't find words, and he wasn't sure he'd have gotten any out past the terrible dryness in his mouth and throat if he'd tried. 

Darth Vader, long since scourge of the Empire's enemies, saw the small human, who reeked of the Light, cower away from him, and felt some small satisfaction. The red hue of all he saw did not keep him from noting the paler hair, the lighter eyes. Were they true ghost eyes, as his men had once called them?

Why did it even matter? He raised his hand, drawing the Force to him, intent on choking the life out of this relic of the past --

\-- and his power connected to the boy's, wrapped into it, singing with knowing, the knowing of legacies.

"HOW?!" he thundered as his hand fell back to his side.

"...how, what?" Luke barely managed to find words, even as one of his hands caught his temples between thumb and finger, trying to stop the ache in it. He didn't know why his head hurt so terribly, or why he felt such an awful sense of recognition of the strange, massive being. He squinted against the pain, trying to focus, to look at the strange being, to focus on... that voice was male, so was the being? 

"Your own brood, stolen from you, our lord?" the small gray being on the left said, confusion in his voice.

The harsh breathing intensified for a moment, then steadied as the respirator took charge. 

"Kenobi."

Vader uttered the name, as memories assaulted him, reminded him of all he lost. This boy was his own flesh, was _hers_ , and that meant that Kenobi had stolen his child and hidden him away on that vile world of pain and suffering!

Luke felt his head clear a little, even as the terrible anger he knew the other man was feeling still beat at him somehow. The hissing question from one of the small beings made no sense to him, but he pushed that aside for the moment. It was a puzzle for later, but he cocked his head at the single snarled word. 

"Old Ben?" he asked, forgetting his promise to himself to be silent. 

Darth Vader moved further into the cell, inspecting the boy. There was a softness, one that reminded him of _her_ , bridling his rage at the unexpected shock in his life, letting him focus all of his terrible temper on Kenobi instead.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi. Though, of him, I do not wish to speak. You; they say you are called Luke Skywalker."

"I am," Luke nodded, somehow feeling a little safer even though he knew that the massive stranger was still enraged -- and he didn't know why. "I'm from outside Toshe Station. Um, near Anchorhead?" 

He'd never heard that name, he didn't think, but he still thought, somehow, that the stranger meant Old Ben. 

Those words were known to him. Places, places that the fool Skywalker had gone in his mad trek to save his mother, already damned by Jedi incompetence and inability to truly live! Fools, all of them, existing in half-lives dominated by a refusal to use their own power to uphold their beliefs.

"I… am aware." What had the name been? "Lars. The Lars homestead."

Luke nodded, shocked at the idea at someone so obviously important, a lord even (if he'd heard the small, grey-cloaked shape right), would know about a pair of simple moisture farmers on Tatooine. "Yeah -- I mean, yes, Sir. They're my aunt and uncle. How -- how did you know?" 

"Because you, Luke, are my son."

Shock took Luke, too strong for anything else, and he shook his head, not believing it. He didn't want to say that such a great man could be wrong, but this... couldn't be. "I'm sorry, but... my father died in the Clone Wars, my uncle said." 

The frame of the bed imploded under the force that was brought, invisibly, to bear on it. "In a manner of speaking, perhaps. I am not the weak being that Anakin Skywalker was. I have moved past that, and risen.

"But that man lied to you, and is not of your blood!"

Luke jumped away from the suddenly, impossibly destroyed berth, shock beating in him again at the crash and clatter and that he hadn't seen anything, taking a slow, deep breath. 

"I don't understand, at all... and how are you so sure? I mean, why?" 

"The Force, Luke. Your birthright, through me, as it connects us both." Darth Vader held his left hand out, palm up. "Come. This is no place for my child."

The pair of guards swiftly moved, as silently each was plotting how to learn more of this 'Kenobi' and remove him from life for the crime against their lord.

There really wasn't a lot of choice, not when he was stuck in a cell if he did anything else, and Luke nodded as he moved towards that outstretched, armored hand. He laid his in it, cautious, wary of a blow or a trap, but... terrifying as this stranger that claimed to be his father was, it was the best chance he had. "I will come," he agreed. 

The hand closed with gentle strength on Luke's, but the contact only increased the flow of the Force between them, giving Luke a glimpse of the unending torture of pain that was Vader's existence.

"This way, my son," Vader said, his rage now solely directed at Kenobi. His mind, however, was turning over the task at hand.

How could he hide this son, this fount of power and connection to _her_ from his master? Neither Skywalker's Apprentice nor his own had survived the Emperor's machinations, after all.

The pain made Luke reel for a moment, and even more because it seemed as though the man did not even notice it, but he squared his shoulders and moved at his father's -- was he, really? and what was the Force? -- side.

* * *

By necessity, that station had to have its operations curtailed; Vader would not risk word reaching the Emperor before he had handled matters to protect Luke. His Noghri carried out his orders, with some distaste for the lack of challenge in the kills, but they followed instructions to make it look like system failure through sabotage, one more thing to throw on the list of the Rebellion's crimes against the Empire.

That had been a convenient scapegoat for Vader over the years.

"You are too short and too loud in the Force for me to merely disguise as a stormtrooper," Vader mused, after Luke had been settled with clothing, a trip to the 'fresher, and food.

"I don't want to be a stormtrooper. I want to be a pilot."

Vader studied the boy for a long moment, wrestling with memories in the back of his mind, refusing to let Skywalker's past cloud his future.

"You will be far more, Luke. You have the Force. I will train you to use it, and then… then we shall end the Emperor together."

Luke's head tipped to the side, puzzled, and he said, carefully, "But... you're part of the Empire? Why would you want to -- " words failed him for a moment, before he made himself go on. "To kill him?" 

Vader felt something in this boy he had not felt in years, something that reminded him of Skywalker, but not with such rage.

This was more the boy that had survived slavery and kept true to a mother's guidance, before everything went the wrong direction, because of the Jedi.

"The Emperor is unfit to rule. He holds that he is the full power of the galaxy, and yet lets his Moffs and Governors run rampant in systems with little oversight," Vader said, spinning a story that was true, yet not the full weight of why he wanted the Emperor dead. "With you at my side, my son, we could change that."

Luke thought about that, turning it over in his head, wishing he had something to tinker with while he thought -- he always thought best when he had something to work on in his hands. "...I don't know how _I_ could help you, but... I'll learn. But -- what you said makes sense. I mean. From some of what people say, he doesn't sound much better than a Hutt." 

Vader could not quite control the hissing sound he made, even if his respirator disagreed with it completely. "Of course you are familiar with those vile ones. The Emperor has seen fit to keep away from their space, for now, preferring to cripple thriving worlds in the name of bringing order to the galaxy," he said, spinning events in his own manner. He had to work carefully; this boy was his son, his heir, and needed to understand the grand design to make the galaxy stronger by falling in line to perfect control.

For this, and only this, Vader could be patient and make words be his leverage. The entire future was open to him now, if he could just bide his time, and shape this son of his own into his perfect apprentice.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone has ideas on how it plays out from here, feel free to share your ideas and just link us!
> 
> [Challenge: Luke Applies to the Imperial Academy](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13417773) by [EDelta88](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EDelta88/pseuds/EDelta88) is a great follow up on this idea.


End file.
